Peace Walker was a great game (for a spinoff) and a solid addition to the Metal Gear series. With stuff like Mother Base, R&D, Outer Ops, and co-0p gameplay, it was both ambitious and innovative, but there was one thing that always held it back, and it was, of course, the PSP itself.

Personally, I’m excited for the PS3 version of Peace Walker, which is set to be released in November this year. Even though it’s being remastered for HD by a company I’ve never heard of, “Bluepoint Games”, I don’t think Kojima Productions will allow them to screw it up too badly, and finally I’ll be able to play it for an hour without suffering from severe hand cramping.

Once this game is available for console players on both the PS3 and 360, hopefully more people will learn the story of Big Boss and appreciate another important chapter of the series. And, as they learn the story of Big Boss, they might even look into the allegory that is contained within it.

Earlier than expected, I have sacrificed the old “classic site” with the new blog format.

In order to maximize traffic to the blog area of the site — this area, the one that you’re reading right now — I’ve decided to overwrite the old main page with this. If you wanted to read some of the old content, I’m sorry, but that will be harder to do now. If you don’t care about reading the old stuff that much, but would rather have a single main page, you’re welcome!

The old stuff is still there — for example — but because “index.html” is now deleted, clicking back to main will take you to the blog an error. I’ll try to create links to all of the main pages so that linking back here won’t be as much of a problem, even though that’s a lazy workaround. Just be grateful for what you get, jerks!

Yes, there’s the possibility that we’ll see awesome games, consoles and innovations; Nintendo supposedly has a new console to reveal, and of course Kojima Productions will have its own spotlight, even if the man who the company is named after is shunning the event. Some think that Sony and Microsoft will also reveal their plans for new consoles, even if it’s basically just a concept. So there could be sweet news!

But as my old grand-uncle William Shakespeare used to say: all that glimmers is not gold. There’s also the harsh reality that businesses love making huge promises that ultimately become stupid disappointments. If you’re the kind of person who is satisfied by simply having something new to speculate about (a stance I’ve been known to take), then it’s probably a win-win situation. But please, if you’re going to speculate, do it right: balance your hype with some criticism and realism, okay? 70% of all new ideas are garbage.

For as much as I liked the unique style of the previous blog format, I just couldn’t live with it. The fact that “Continue Reading” messed up your position in the post, the disorganized way that content was distributed on the main page — I finally decided to just go for a classic approach.

I’ll be tweaking this theme here and there in the coming days and weeks, bear with me.

Yes that’s right folks, I submitted a drawing for the Kojima Productions Fan Art Contest back… uh… whenever that was, but now the winner’s are finally announced, and it turns out I made the cut with something as bizarre as Christopher Walken dressed up as Solid Snake. The folks over at the KP Report talk about it before any other ones, so listen to it for their comments and love, and (my favorite part) the fact that Yoji Shinkawa actually picked it, and acknowledged that he was instructed by Kojima to make Snake look like Christopher Walken originally. He said it made him reflect on his old days. What an honor indeed.

I actually forgot I submitted it, but apparently enough people over at Kojima Productions enjoyed it to bump it up to #10. Of course, this probably means that they just had a tiny number of submissions, especially when you see the pathetic scribbles that also made the cut, but hey, a win is a win, and I’m proud. Personally I NEVER thought it would win, but now I can look forward to getting a special bandana and T-shirt. Having Shinkawa appreciate the thought of it is the best prize I could have asked for, however.